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Rysn follows the captain into the hold, where the Horneater girl reaches into a barrel of lavis grain and pulls up a fistful that writhes with worms before they bury themselves again. Every barrel is the same — the original Thaylen City stock, an early resupply, and a barrel taken on only two days ago — and the sailors are already passing the words *dark Soulcasting* among themselves like a confirmed diagnosis. Spontaneous worms in stores so soon after restock would be alarming under any reading; on a ship already shaken by a dead pet on the morning of departure and bound for a forbidden island, it is the kind of omen that ferments mutiny. Kstled mutters that the men dream of premonitions; the Passions, he reminds her, *make* the world. Rysn lets none of this take, gives the appearance of considering it, and asks how much of the crew knows. All of them.

She has herself carried up to her cabin and lets Nikli set her at her desk. The Lopen follows her in unbidden, offering to Lash himself to the nearest Alethi outpost and bring back fresh grain by air; she calls it viable, but turns instead to her old notebooks. He notices that this is not really about the food, and she does not deny it. The real danger of sea voyaging is letting your crew get away from you — emotions in a confined hull feed off one another the way spren do, and ordinarily disciplined sailors can talk themselves into hysteria. The defence is discipline and the swift, visible action that gives them somewhere else to put their fear. She finds the page she is looking for — a brattier, younger Rysn writing furiously about her babsk on an expedition into the wilderness of Hexi — and remembers the exact lesson Vstim had taught her then. He had bought wormy grain out of Triax for chips and refused to tell her why, until he had her recite a memorised list of six peoples who would buy fresh grain *because* it had worms in it. Trade was not buying and selling; trade was finding the unmet need. A kind of Soulcasting in itself. She sends Lopen to fetch the captain.

She invites the Hexi nomads aboard with the entire crew watching. They are a quiet people who keep braids and animals as sacred beasts; their priestly class will not eat meat but reckons grubs as plant. Rysn opens trade with the exact phrases Vstim had drilled her in, lets the nomads sift and approve the grain on their own terms, and negotiates briefly, firmly, without trying to take advantage. The ship walks away with a heavy stock of nomad-cured jerky and a stack of blankets gifted for the respectful language she used; the nomads walk away singing. The captain, scratching her head, admits she had not believed Rysn until she watched the trade close. The market is not common knowledge because nobody else considers the Hexi tribes worth learning the language for. Around the deck the anxious-looking spren thin out; the omen has been inverted into a small triumph the men can tell each other about, and that is the only purpose it ever needed to serve. *Even the worst highstorm dropped fresh water*, Rysn reminds herself. The omens are nonsense. The way people react to them is not.

Nikli returns to carry her in a cradle-carry to her quarterdeck seat, and on the way the same sailors who used to ignore him call out a friendly joke and earn a smile back. The hazing she suggested to him a few chapters ago has worked: the men eat with him now, ask about his homeland. Rysn explains that a ship's crew is a family, and that what looks like prejudice from the outside is often simply the family closing ranks against anyone who has not joined yet; he needed only to step through that door. Nikli, abashed, admits he had been holding the men at arm's length too. Rysn lets him sit with that and presses him gently for the story of why he left his small village. He gives her a careful, half-true answer: he was betrayed by someone he trusted, and when one of his people was needed in Thaylenah he volunteered so he would not have to be in the same place as the one who had done it. He asks her what wisdom Vstim gave about betrayal. *Read contracts with friends an extra time*, she answers — being cheated by someone you love is like waking in a deep dark ocean with nothing around you but the shadow-shapes of things you used to understand. Nikli, surprised, says he had assumed Vstim was a man of pure charity. Rysn replies that you do not earn a reputation for honesty without somebody at some point treating that honesty as an opening.

Then, hesitating, he warns her: the Radiants and their friends are hiding something from her. He overheard the ardent shushing one of them about *the mission*; the worms were first discovered by Cord; the Radiants still have not given a credible reason a Horneater cook is along for a survey of Akinah. He does not accuse, only points. Rysn dismisses the idea that the Knights Radiant planted the worms, but she does not dismiss the timing — and realises she still does not know how the ship's pet died. She tells herself, carefully, to watch instead of jump. If someone is using omens against this voyage, another will come.

Nikli steps into the head, locks the door, and dampens the body's sense of smell. He flexes a fist, pleased with how long this form has been holding, then lets the body relax. The seams in its skin split open and the squirming insides take the cool air with relief. He closes the body's outermost set of eyes — its proper human ones, which are actually functional, a small private pride of his over the prop eyes most Sleepless use — and with the body inert it is easier to feel the distant pieces of himself, scattered all across Roshar. He buzzes through hordelings bred to interpret the buzzing, and is immediately answered.

*We have a problem*, Nikliasorm sends. The angriest voice, Alalhawithador who is Third, returns at once: *no — the problem is that you have failed to scare them off, and other measures will be required.* Nikliasorm corrects: the problem is that he is coming to like the humans. The First, Yelamaiszin, calmly says that this is not unexpected; it is good that some of them learn to study and even fond of humans, because compassion is owed to those one must cull. The argument widens. Zyardil insists this new crop of Radiants is not the pirate scouts of past intrusions — kill them, and more will come. Alalhawithador insists the ghost ship should never have been found, accuses the traitor Arclomedarian of arranging exactly that, and votes to let the humans breach the storm and be lost. Yelamaiszin refuses. The question is sent to all twenty swarms. The vote splits — half for letting the storm have them, half for killing now — with several swarms, Nikliasorm among them, abstaining. The deadlock is the opening Nikliasorm needs. He asks leave to try once more to ward the humans off without bloodshed; he has a plan, he says, but he will need help. A second vote consents. Yelamaiszin warns him, calm and certain, that this is the last attempt — *it hurts us to kill Radiants, let alone one of the Sighted* — but if it fails, the next vote will not be so gentle, and he will need to be willing to take more drastic measures.